Dodge Engineers Give Drivers Valuable Edge

Auto Racing

The Tinkering Helped Ward Burton And Sterling Marlin Get Going On The Restarts.

February 19, 2002|By Ed Hinton, Sentinel Staff Writer

DAYTONA BEACH -- There may have been more method to the madness of the 44th Daytona 500 than all the wreckage and references to luck implied in Sunday's immediate aftermath.

Dodge engineers' tweaking of engines for a special task -- giving their drivers a smidgen of advantage on restarts after cautions -- just might have been the key.

On Monday, Ward Burton's winning Intrepid was placed in Daytona USA, the speedway's on-site theme attraction, for one year. Teams in the past have winced at that practice, wishing they could keep such thoroughly proven cars for further use during the season. This car, International Speedway Corp. can keep. There are plenty more Dodge engines where Burton's, and Sterling Marlin's, came from.

Consider the two pivotal moments of the last six laps Sunday:

On the next-to-last restart, second-place Marlin got such a strong run on leader Jeff Gordon's Chevrolet that Gordon felt compelled to block. They bumped, Gordon spun, their jockeying caused an additional five-car pileup behind them, and a red flag came out. Gordon was sent to the back of the line for pitting too early and Marlin for working on his bent fender during the red.

Then on the final restart, with three laps left, leader Burton not only saw no "run" in his mirror from second-place Elliott Sadler's Ford, but the Intrepid broke so rapidly away from the Taurus that by the backstretch, Burton had a cushion he could ride the rest of the way.

The least surprised, and most gratified, spectator among the 200,000 present was Ted Flack, manager of Dodge's NASCAR engine department. "Engines give you good restarts," Flack said. "I was pretty confident."

As for the aerodynamic relief, a 1/4-inch rear spoiler reduction Dodge received last Friday, "I couldn't feel any difference, and the stopwatch didn't show any," Burton said.

"A restart has a lot to do with the engine because the aero isn't taking over yet," Flack said.

That is, cars aren't up to high enough speed to feel the aerodynamic effects of body design. What they do feel immediately is horsepower advantage.

"Ward had it at the restart, got away from the pack, and that was it," Flack said of Dodge's first Daytona 500 win since Richard Petty in 1974 and first win at Daytona International Speedway since Petty in the Firecracker 400 of 1977.

"Restarts were a real bugaboo for our engine department last year," said Bill Tracy, Dodge's senior manager of motorsports operations, discussing Dodge's first season back in Winston Cup racing after more than 20 years of absence. "They worked on it all winter. We had to improve our restarts. We lost a race at Michigan, and a couple of others, on restarts. These guys went to work and got the problem solved."

Detroit engineers can only do so much, providing information on such matters as combustion. Team engine builders -- such as Terry Elledge, the head engine builder with Burton's Bill Davis Racing team -- must perform the intricate surgeries of machining parts and assembling them.

"Terry Elledge does a great job," Flack said. "Terry worked and worked."

Tiny advantages in horsepower are magnified in restrictor-plate racing. In Sunday's race, all 43 engines were producing considerably less than 400 horsepower -- barely half the power engines produce on "unrestricted tracks," as engine specialists call every Winston Cup venue other than Daytona and Talladega.